Inside Story - Are the US and Russia Headed for More Tension in 2018?

The Trump administration kicked off 2017 with hope for better relations with Russia. But the year ends with hardening rhetoric between two of the world's most influential powers.

Washington is now taking a tougher stance on Moscow for what it calls 'destabilizing activities'. Just this week, Donald Trump announced the United States will give Ukraine 'enhanced defensive capabilities' to fight pro-Russia separatists, in other words, weapons. Vladimir Putin's responded with a warning that this will only increase the use of force, and he used the same tone in outlining how Russia will move into 2018. So are relations now at their lowest since the end of the Cold War? And what will 2018 bring?

Presenter: Sami Zeidan | Guests Nikolay Surkov, foreign policy analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council; Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Macharia Munene, international relations expert at the United States International University

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Doyle McManus: The End of Obamamania
LOS ANGELES TIMES: On his overseas trip, the president was met with a lot less cheering and a lot more tough talk.

Barack Obama has fallen back to Earth.

When he ran for president, Obama said his election would be "the moment the rise of the oceans began to slow." And when he made his first big foreign trip in April, he was hailed by adoring crowds -- and almost-as-adoring politicians -- in Britain, Germany, France and the Czech Republic.

But last week, in Russia and Italy, Obamania was little more than a pleasant memory. Yes, his international polling numbers are still high, but the president encountered hardly any adulation in the streets of Moscow or anywhere else. Instead, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin reportedly gave him a tongue-lashing over a two-hour breakfast, and the tent-bound refugees from Italy's April earthquake mostly wanted to know whether he could rebuild their homes. ("Yes, we camp," their banner said, pointedly.)

And the oceans are still rising too. At the Group of 8 summit, the developing countries said no to a timetable to stop global warming, the reason for the waters' rise.

That's not to say the trip was a bust; it wasn't. But it was far from a triumph, and that's a new experience for Obama's foreign policy team.

The hard reality of international affairs is that, just as the United States has interests, so do other countries. And when those interests conflict, all the charm and charisma in the world can't resolve the differences.

At the G-8 summit, the United States, Britain and France had hoped for a tough statement on Iran's nuclear ambitions. The closest they got to a warning was this: "We sincerely hope that Iran will seize this opportunity to give diplomacy a chance."

The summit's other accomplishments were mostly worthy half-measures. The developing countries wouldn't sign on, but the eight big economies agreed to try to for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, 41 years from now. After a personal appeal from Obama, member nations promised $20 billion to help poor countries grow more food, but much of the money turned out to be old pledges under a new name.

Obama went to Moscow to "reset" U.S.-Russian relations, which under George W. Bush had veered from unrealistic enthusiasm to bitter recriminations. He succeeded in changing the tone, but the concrete results were modest. The two nuclear powers agreed on a framework for reducing their atomic arsenals, but since both sides went into the talks wanting to cut, the nuclear issue was the easy part.

More difficult were the issues each country sees as its top priority: for the United States, the problem of Iran; for Russia, the desire of its onetime possessions Ukraine and Georgia to escape from Moscow's orbit. >>> Doyle McManus | Sunday, July 12, 2009

Russian Muslims Hope Obama Will Improve US-Russia Ties
RIA NOVOSTI: MOSCOW - Russian Muslims hope that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will be able to improve relations between Washington and Moscow, a deputy head of the Council of Muftis of Russia said on Saturday.

"First of all, we congratulate Obama with the victory. We hope that relations between our countries will improve," Damir Gizatullin said.

Relations between Russia and the U.S. have plunged to a post-Cold War low in recent years over a host of differences, including the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe and a brief conflict in August between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, a Georgian breakaway republic.

Gizatullin added that Russian Muslims have a positive opinion of the newly elected U.S. president and are happy with his election.

"It is probably because the new U.S. president has Islamic roots," he said.

Democrat Obama, who is the first African American to be elected U.S. president, had a Kenyan grandfather who was a Muslim and spent some of his early years in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation on Earth. U.S. public opinion surveys consistently showed a significant number of voters - 10% or more - believed he was or might be a Muslim. [Source: Ria Novosti] | November 8, 2008

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The Chilling of US-Russian Relations
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: George W. Bush once thought he could look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see his soul. But now that the Russian leader has tightened his grip on power, the strained friendship between these two major statesmen could turn to outright enmity. The conflict over Iran is just one example.

Senator John McCain spoke in a low voice, as he often does at campaign appearances. The Republican presidential hopeful had just discussed Iran, and now it was time to say a word or two about Russia. "When I looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes," he told the audience in a conspiratorial whisper, "I saw three things: a K and a G and a B."

On Wednesday, at a White House press conference with George W. Bush, a reporter asked the president what he thought of McCain's words. "Pretty good line," said Bush with a chuckle -- and threw some more rhetorical coal on the fire. He said Putin was "wily" over the question of who might succeed him at the Kremlin. "He wouldn't tip his hand."

Bush had just used unusually hawkish words at this press conference to describe the nuclear tension with Iran. Clearly referring to Putin, Bush had told reporters, "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing Iran from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

That reference to "World War III" was reminiscent of earlier presidential rhetoric like "The Axis of Evil" (Bush, 2002) and "The Evil Empire" (Reagan, 1983). The choice of words reflected a deep chill in US-Russian relations -- and differences over Iran are not the only reason for the falling out.

"The relationship is really shaken. Both sides appear determined to verbally assault each other as often as possible over the coming months," says Rose Gottemoeller, Director of the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE. Cold War Tension, Reloaded (more)

Mark Alexander